'Huge Win': Judge Bars Trump DOJ From Searching Devices of Washington Post Journalist

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the US Justice Department cannot search the devices it seized from Hannah Natanson, a Washington Post journalist whose home was raided by the FBI earlier this year as part of an investigation into a government contractor.

William Porter, magistrate judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia's Arlington Division, wrote in his 22-page decision that the Trump administration's "failure to identify and analyze" the Privacy Protection Act (PPA) in its application for a search warrant in the case "has seriously undermined the court’s confidence in the government’s disclosures in this proceeding."

The PPA shields journalists from being forced to turn over work materials to law enforcement. During the raid on Natanson's home, FBI agents reportedly seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, and other devices.

"Many government lawyers had multiple opportunities to identify the PPA as controlling authority and to include an analysis of it in the warrant application," Porter wrote. "None of them did."

Porter added that he hopes "this search was conducted—as the government contends—to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration."

Runa Sandvik, founder of a startup that works to protect journalists' digital security, called the ruling a "huge win for Hannah Natanson and the Washington Post."

The Post noted in its reporting on the decision that federal prosecutors "acknowledged that only a small portion of the information on the devices seized from Natanson would be relevant to the case against" Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who was indicted last month on charges of illegally obtaining and sharing classified materials.

Federal prosecutors "asked Porter to allow a government filter team to search through the devices for relevant information," and the team "would then hand over the responsive information to prosecutors," the Post reported.

Porter rejected that proposal in his ruling, citing "documented reporting on government leak investigations and the government’s well-chronicled efforts to stop them."

"Allowing the government’s filter team to search a reporter’s work product—most of which consists of unrelated information from confidential sources—is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” Porter wrote. “The concern that a filter team may err by neglect, by malice, or by honest difference of opinion is heightened where its institutional interests are so directly at odds with the press freedom values at stake.”

Press freedom organizations have condemned the Trump administration's raid on Natanson's home and seizure of her work devices as an alarming escalation in a broader assault on journalism.

Earlier this month, the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a complaint against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who signed the search warrant application targeting Natanson.

“Kromberg and the government omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson’s home when applying for a search warrant," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF, said in a statement, referring to the Privacy Protection Act. "That choice now threatens to expose Natanson’s sources and cripple her ability to report, while also sending a warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide."

“Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else," Stern added. "When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.”